1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for printing digital images on at least one input roll of media in order to form at least one output roll by means of a roll-to-roll system, the roll-to-roll system comprising a digital image queue comprising an entry for each digital image to be printed, the method comprising the steps of registering in an entry of the digital image queue a first digital item identifying the digital image and digital items of print properties of the digital image, and printing the digital image according to the order of the entry in the digital image queue.
2. Description of Background Art
Nowadays, printing systems are available for printing digital images according to a digital image queue. The digital image queue has an entry for each submitted digital image to be printed. The sequence order of the entries in the digital image queue represents a chronological order of printing the corresponding digital images on the at least one input roll. Such an entry comprises a digital identification of the digital image, for example a link to the storage location of the digital image or a print job number, image properties of the digital image, etc. A user is able to move entries up and down the digital image queue, for example to move an entry to the head of the digital image queue.
Roll-to-roll systems have an input section comprising at least one input holder for holding input rolls and an output section comprising at least one output holder for holding output rolls. An input roll may be split resulting in different output rolls, for by example by executing a cut of the input roll during printing. An output roll may have media wound up from different input rolls. The output roll may be formed by concatenating the input rolls to each other. For example, an end side of a first input roll may be adhered or glued to the beginning side of a second input roll, etc. In another application, the unwinding of media of the second input roll is started automatically when the first input roll is fully unwound and leads to the media from the second roll wound up on the same output roll as where media of the first input roll is wound up without any adhesive material. Each of the input rolls has its own core and is provided in the input roll section of the printing device. The input roll section may be provided with more than one input holder for holding input rolls. The formed output roll has one core and is provided in an output roll section of the printing device. The output roll section has at least one output holder for holding output rolls.
Especially, in a roll-to-roll printing system moving an entry to the head of a digital image queue may result in a plurality of operator actions when the media specified for the digital image corresponding to the entry that is moved to the head of the digital image is another media than a media of the current first input roll. Subsequent operator actions may be cutting a current first input roll, unloading the current first input roll, loading a second input roll, printing the digital image on the second input roll, cutting the second input roll, unloading the second input roll, loading the first input roll again and continuing printing of the originally planned digital images on the first input roll.
Users may want to influence an order of printing the digital images, but productivity may drop dramatically due to additional roll changes as described in the example here-above.